In Brief

By Lev Grossman

FACE THE MUSIC Ever wanted to really sock it to Christina Aguilera? Now you can, courtesy of a new high-tech toy from Hasbro called M.A.G.S. ($19.99), which stands for Music Activated Gaming System. Plug M.A.G.S. into a CD player, or anything else that plays music, and it converts the sound waves into a graphics display, which you can shoot to earn points. Extra bonus for nailing Kenny G.

FASTER FOOD When you're jonesing for a Freezy McShake, you don't want to fool around with old-fashioned bills and coins, do you? After a year of testing, burger titan McDonald's will roll out a new cashless payment system in 400 Chicago-area stores. Wave your McDonald's Speedpass over a special reader--based on the same technology that powers highway tollbooth passes--and your tab will be automatically added to your credit-card bill. Now if only Ronald had a fat-free French fry system...

STORE MORE Remember those funky old 5 1/4-in. floppy discs that looked like roof tiles and held a paltry 800 kilobytes of data? Well, forget 'em. Iomega has a new disc called Peerless that stores 20 gigabytes--more than most hard drives. Granted, a Peerless disc drive costs $400, but that's for enough space to fit your entire PC on a single disc. And you can probably fit all those back issues of National Geographic you've been keeping in the attic too.

--L.G.